Cheshire Smile
by 2nd Star tothe Right
Summary: Karu and Ari Yuy are about to meet a famous someone who can help them with their authority issues
1. of kidnappers and the kidnapped

_Cheshire Smile by 2nd Star to the Right_

_Disclaimer: Nothing to do with the Gundams belongs to me (but Karu and Ari's souls are mine!)_

_Author's Notes: ok, ok, I admit I don't know much about senseis or brain scanning, so please forgive my ignorance…_

CHAPTER ONE… of kidnappers and the kidnapped

Far down the forest path a man snapped out of his daydream as someone passed several yards away from his napping…er, hiding spot. He squinted trying to see who had passed and discovered a teenage girl dressed in all black.

It wasn't the fact that she was holding a conversation with herself, it was the long braid draped over her shoulder and swinging by her knees that made him smile to himself. This is defiantly the one he was waiting for.

He was glad he had finally found her; this assignment had already gone on too long. He sighed out loud. He couldn't act like the assignment was already over- he had only just found the brat. How in the colonies was he supposed to find out what she herself didn't know? "Well," he snickered to himself, "she doesn't even know her real name so…

"It's Karu," proclaimed a clear voice followed by a clearer punch-kick combination. As his vision decayed into black and white specs, he managed to groan, "How did you know?" Karu knew he was unconscious but answered anyway, "Not many squirrels can snicker."

Karu was slightly annoyed but not worried at the appearance of the spy. It meant that she would have an unforeseen detour and then be late for Sensei. Her sensei would _not_ be pleased.

It had been years since Sensei had formally taught Karu anything, although she still kept an obsessively close eye on the girl. Sensei seemed to feel she'd earned the right to closely follow Karu's exploits; she had carefully trained Karu in several fighting styles, both offensive and defensive. Now Karu taught these styles to Sensei's younger students since the teacher was far too busy to handle everyone personally, and she was probably going to miss her class.

She considered the best excuse to tell her as Karu dragged the man, tied up, down the path. She made no effort to avoid the rocks and tree roots that scraped the man's body. "Maybe next time you'll think before spying on a person," she lectured him, kicking him to accent the point.

He quickly stifled his groan, hoping she hadn't heard.

"Go ahead and whine if it makes you feel any better," she continued," I wouldn't have bothered to kick you if I didn't know you were conscious. It's way too hot out to waste the energy."

"I was waiting for your apology…"

She took his surprised grunt as a cue that the apology would be long in coming and explained," you were following me…don't you think that deserves an apology? It's ok, most of the spies you guys send are seriously lacking in the manners department. When I find out who is sending you, and I will find out, I will suggest a manners training program…"

Her chatter broke of as she envisioned hundreds of potential spies, strapped to their chairs, in a fine dining hall.

_An old teacher struts the length of the room and then turns on her boot heel," What would you do to get the salt?" she barks into the face of a nervous recruit. The recruit starts to learn forward and around his fellow dining 'companions' to grab the salt. "NO," screams the officer and zaps him with a handy cattle prod. The officer moves on to the next recruit, leaving the last one to cool, "what do you do at the intersection?" The recruit grins confidently," cover my face so the traffic cameras won't get me on film!" "That's good, smiles the officer, and then laughs- NO, you help the old lady across the street! Fool!" the officer zaps him a good one._

Karu laughed evilly and then realized the spy was staring at her in the way you stare at the Teletubbies. That horrified, mesmerized, brain-washed look. Yeah. She also realized where she was and stopped quickly.

She turned to the spy, "I would have taken your apology, but since I didn't get it, I will take your memory instead." At the thought of having a 15-yr. old extract his memory, he began to sputter apologies.

Karu grinned, "It's too late, and besides I would have had to take out your memory anyway- you know my real name." The last thing he heard that day was her gleeful laugh.

Karu sighed in frustration. The spy thought she had two names. She had scanned his brain, downloaded the relevant information and erased his memory. Ah, the wonder of modern technology!

"But, seriously, why does he think I have another name?"

She was talking to herself again, for lack of a better audience. "It's really too bad that he hadn't found my 'real' name yet… now I'll have to go find it myself."

Karu glanced at her watch and grabbed her baseball hat and the man's unconscious body. She was late enough with out trying to figure out why she would have another name.

After dropping the unconscious spy off at The House of Mercy Insane Asylum, anonymously just like the rest of the bunch, she ran to Sensei's. She was too late to teach her class, but right in time for sensei's lecture on punctuality and a workout with the short swords.

Sensei's lecture actually wasn't as bad as she had feared. In fact it was more of worry than anger, which Karu had known all along.

Her Sensei, which is all she was ever called, was a spunky old Japanese woman. If she ever heard you call her spunky she'd slap you, if she heard you calling her old you wouldn't be walking for a week.

Even if she was violent, Karu loved her sensei, and depended on her, along with Ariella, Karu's best-best friend, for morals, standards, and fashion sense.

They were the only ones who knew about her clumsy spies, and they both worried for her, although they knew that was impractical. They both knew that if any teenager had ever been ready to stop spies it had to be Karu.

Her fighting skills as well as her tracking, stealth, and alertness, impressive to begin with, had all greatly improved since the spies began following her.

As she stretched for a cool-off, she thought about the formula. Every month or so, she would find a spy tracking her. Since she could scan their brains she knew that they did not know much.

She had gathered a lot of information about both 'sides' of whatever conflict was happening, and she knew she was important to that conflict, after all, why would they bother with 30 odd spies if she was unimportant?

After she caught the spy of the month she would scan and wipe his memory, then she would drop him off at The House of Mercy Insane Asylum and go to Sensei's.

At first, she had gone to Sensei's for comfort, and after three years she was competent enough to deal with the spies, but she felt funny when she didn't go the Sensei's, almost like she had forgotten the last ingredient.

'Speaking of food, I missed dinner… but chicken sounds nice.'

She didn't tell Sensei where she was going, she just promised to come early tomorrow morning and said good-bye.

She knew the Sensei would not approve of her 'borrowing' food, but she also knew that she would not eat if she did not borrow. So she borrowed some chicken strips and a soda and fries and went home.

She knew Ari (they agreed that her full name was too fancy) would really not have liked her stealing, but she refused to be fed out of pity, which Ari had found out the hard way.

She was remembering the hilarious argument on that subject with Ari when she got home. It actually wasn't that funny except for the memory of Ari's red face emitting exasperated squeaky noises. Ari was not good at communication when she was angry.

The laughter died in her throat as she opened the door and a bright light clicked on to blind her. There was a deep wanna-be evil laugh from behind the light.

"Hello, I know you weren't expecting us."

As she blindly edged to her phone on the desk the voice laughed again. Still wanna-be evil. "No, no, you can't call little Ari, in fact you'll have some difficulty doing anything for awhile."

She shuddered at the thought of this man knowing Ari, but he misinterpreted it, "We won't kill you, I didn't mean it like that. You're far too useful. You have caught 32 of our men, all that we've sent at you, including this morning's. By the way, he was just a distraction, but it worked didn't it? You weren't even going to think spies for another two and a half weeks. According to the pattern you shouldn't have to. Bet you had it down to clock-work, huh?"

As he was talking her eyes were adjusting to the bright light and she could tell he was moving around her room, putting things in a bag. As he neared the hiding place of her laptop, she spoke, to distract him, "You could have at least done your spy the courtesy of telling him he was only bait."

"Ahh," laughed the man, who she could still not see clearly, "So you _can_ scan brains- you will be very useful, indeed."

She bit back a cry as a needle sank into her upper arm, she felt the world grow fuzzy and dim and her last thought was, 'and I promised Sensei I'd come early…' then her world was black.

do me a favor and tell me if you like it or not...THANKYOU!

until next time!star


	2. of brain scanning and singing

_Cheshire Smile by 2nd Star to the Right_

_Disclaimer: Nothing to do with the Gundams belongs to me (but Karu and Ari's souls are mine!) Also, none of the songs, or groups or shows tunes I mention belong to me… you'd have to be fairly removed from society to think that they did, but I'm into not being sued…_

_Dedicated to Hitokiri Tora (my first reviewer) and the awesome people who road tripped to ocean city w/ lance last fall, proving it is entirely possible to sing for 11 hours straight- but you will get a sore throat… _

'_thinking' "speaking"_

CHAPTER TWO… of brain scanning and singing

Karu came to in a sterile white room. She could tell it was sterile because it smelled like Lysol, astringent, and lemon.

Unlike the characters in most stories, she came into consciousness fully aware. She remembered down to that stupid evil laugh what had been said the night before.

"Actually," interrupted a smooth tenor," it was four nights ago."

'What? How did he know…'

"We borrowed your technology"

'The brain scanning! - I created that!'

"Yes, well, we stole it- some one had to, it's quite brilliant"

'Thank you… how did you get through my codes and viruses- I'm sure you figured out I'm a protection freak…'

"We wouldn't of been able to, except for the fact that two days before we borrowed you, we borrowed the kid of the best hacker between the world and it's colonies. Her name is Ariella Yuy, I'm sure you know her…"

Ari was shoved in through a door in the corner. Karu could tell by the bruise that wrapped around her arm and another one below her left eye that she had not hacked into her laptop voluntarily.

"Got that right," the tenor sounded annoyed," we had a harder time getting her to hack than she did hacking into your computer."

Of course it made sense, Ari was the one who had taught her hacking, and she had picked it up from her father the great soldier Heero Yuy.

When Ari was born he set up a fund, education, and care for her, and returned to the war. It wasn't that he didn't care about her; he visited whenever he could and always had long discussions with Ari. Some were about his war; others were about her life. He was always interested in her opinion and Karu knew that Ari's dad loved her and definitely would not be long in finding her.

Fortunately, it didn't take Karu very long to beat her own brain-scanning technology. First of all, the closer the brain is to delta waves, the easier it is to read.

(quick psychology lesson: the brain goes through three or four cycles a night, the cycles are made up of waves which can be measured to tell how deep the sleep is, Delta waves are the deepest sleep, you don't dream in Delta and you are next to unconscious. However, everything I say about brain reading is written under authorial license. ie- reality is stretchy)

Since a person is in a very deep sleep when emitting Delta waves there is no conscious efforts to block a scanner, thoughts are there for the picking and reading.

But Karu woke up quickly and by the time she though about Ari's dad finding them her thoughts were just barely recognizable from static.

And of course, Karu's thoughts are usually unrecognizable from static, so there wasn't much difference there. The guard slammed his fist on the fuzzy, buzzing computer screen and screamed at Ari.

"Fix this thing, brat, it was created by a teenager, it can't be that hard to get through!"

Ari's sarcasm filled the room, "It was created by Karu! The thing is practically indecipherable… along with her thoughts! I fixed it fine; it's not my fault her brain never evolved all the way!"

Karu turned her attention back to her friend, "excuse me?"

"You heard me!"

"WHAT DID YOU SAY!"

"I said you heard me, static-brain! You're a monkey! You never evolved all the way! Look, I can see your tail!" She gestured at Karu's braid, curled on the floor.

"What? I've told you to leave my hair alone! That's it! You're a dead girl!"

Karu struggled to get out of the ropes tying her to the chair, and Ari fought the guards that had rushed the room to prevent a catfight.

The tenor filtered through the speaker on the wall, "take them both away. And stick 'em in the same cell, no use bringing food to two cells, and they obviously aren't such great friends as thought."

Five minutes later Ari and Karu grinned hugely at each other in the gloomy darkness of the second to last cell on row G.

"You know I meant none of it, right?" Ari mouthed at Karu knowing that there were listening bugs in the cell and that any camera couldn't record well enough to read her lips in this dark.

Karu nodded and bobbed her head, "of course, of course! I love it when that works!"

"Me too!"

"Any ideas?"

"On how to get out of here?… none.

"No, i meant about breakfast, I'm hungry!"

Four hours later the guards of row K were begging command central for earplugs. The new girls in cell 29G were on the fifth verse of "She Thinks My Tractor's Sexy," an apparently unending country twang song.

Worse, neither of the girls could pull off a country twang. In fact, they sounded exactly like someone was stuffing a cow down the garbage disposal.

That would have been bad enough, except that the sexy tractor song wasn't their first choice. They had been singing for the last 11 hours and showed no sign of stopping. They were even taking requests from the other prisoners.

They ground out rap, top 20 radio hits, and country before spending half an hour on Enya, howling her ethereal notes, and three hours on the Numa Numa Song (Dragosta dinea). There was a Christmas carol special, followed by hits from the 80's, theme songs to every show between Batman and Gilligan's Island, and then they got to the opera, oh the opera.

They had butchered all the songs, but the opera, the opera had put half a squad on medical leave. Finally the guards had enough. They held an emergency meeting and decided that the girls were insane and they properly belonged in an asylum, preferably an asylum with sound-proof rooms.

The meeting lasted about two minutes and ended with the guards playing rock, paper, scissors. The loser drove the howling girls to the asylum. He didn't even have to complete the patient entrance forms.

The nurse took one look at the girls waltzing together in the back of the truck to "Who Let the Dog's Out?" and swept them inside.

_There's more coming, thanks for putting up with my reality stretching, please feel free to review if you liked or didn't… Star!_


	3. of escapes and hotwiring

_Cheshire__ Smile by 2nd Star to the Right _

_Disclaimer: Nothing to do with the Gundams belongs to me (but Karu and Ari do!)_

CHAPTER THREE... of escapes and hotwiring

Exactly four minutes after the mandatory lights-out enforced at the asylum, two lighters flickered on, throwing odd shadows around the small white cell, which, admittedly, was slightly more comfortable than their last.

Ari watched her best friend mouth words hopelessly; their voices were completely gone thanks to their recent singing hobby.

She giggled as she watched Karu grow more and more frustrated at her inability to communicate, Karu was terrible at reading lips.

Finally she tossed the squeaking girl a folder containing several sheets of paper as well as emergency instructions and a couple pens. The packet had been issued along with their patient's uniforms and other necessities, standard issue, when they arrived.

Karu started scribbling immediately: _That was beyond amazing! You rock my world! _

They passed the paper back and forth laughing hoarsely at their notes:

_Ha, I'm glad you enjoyed yourself. I had no idea you were so good at sounding like Gilligan._

_Oh, you know, we all have our secret talents. _

_I suppose one of your secrets talents would be getting us out of here?_

_You did manage the last one nicely; I'll take care of this fix as soon as I get something to eat. I've been saying I'm hungry for hours and you still haven't fed me! I expect better treatment!_

Ari hummed and handed the paper back to Karu, "here, eat that, it'd be better if no one read it and saw that we don't belong in the crazy-house. Or at least that_ I_ don't…"

She dodged Karu's light punch and got to work on picking the chain that held her foot to the bedpost, another standard issue for uncontrollable patients in this hospital.

By the time Karu had finished off the paper and undone her own lock they had communicated a plan (lots of gesturing and some drawing on the wall was involved.)

It became obvious that this was about the best place that anyone could choose to store them, Karu knew the House of Mercy Asylum rather well from all of her anonymous patient contributions.

She had been exploring, or as she nicknamed her bad habit of prying into everything that she shouldn't, spelunking, on several occasions in the last couple years and assured Ari, with over exaggerated facial expressions and a couple resigned thumbs up, that she knew where the patients' personal items, including clothes, would be stored, and they wouldn't have much trouble liberating their old things.

A good thing since Ari flatly refused to escape in a medical gown. She felt that even if they were being held in an insane asylum, she still had to preserve what little dignity she could scrape up. Karu agreed while thinking that dignity is something of a luxury if you've spent eleven hours singing in the back of an armored truck.

Phase one of their plan went relatively smoothly. Ari picked the door lock and let Karu lead the way, both still shielding lighters, to the storage units.

Since they had only been admitted that day, their things were on top, waiting for inspection by the Asylum's doctors.

Ari wanted to change right then and there, but listened when Karu explained that their robes would provide evidence and probably DNA, leaving them around would certainly stir up trouble, and the place was too clean to hide them anywhere.

There were also cameras pointed in every direction. At this point Ari felt like hitting something, she managed to squeak out in her music- abused voice, "You mean they've been watching us? Won't they just put us back in the cell and take everything away again? We'll be right back where we started!"

Karu patted her head and whispered comfortingly, "put your clothes on under the robe, and you know I'm too lazy to re-do all that work! You must be really tired, ooh…that's right, they did get you two days before me… how is it possible I didn't notice? I'm sorry."

"It's ok, you were preoccupied with looking for the newest spy- we both knew it was about time for one to show up."

"By the way, they were using their own people! Ow, my throat really hurts; anyway, the guy who got me mentioned that the spy was only there to throw me off the track. Something about my knowing their pattern and not expecting another spy for a month or so. They really played us, Ari."

Karu had been leading the way down a seemingly random series of hallways, she pointed as they passed one room and hissed, "That's why I wasn't worried about the cameras, when I went to get my packet and robe and stuff this morning I passed a water cooler, that one there I think, and I slipped some stuff into it."

"You poisoned their water supply…"

Ari stared at the cooler, not moving until her friend tugged her on snickering, "only a bit…"

They finally stopped in front of a long window, Karu tapping her finger on the dirty glass, "I'm thinking the red one!"

Below in a double row of army vehicles a shiny new, red jeep wrangler was closest to the garage door, and Karu was grinning dangerously.

It took longer than the girls would have liked but they finally found the right stairs that led to the garage (Karu was no help since she had never thought to explore the garage before.) Once they were in the warehouse, it wasn't hard to find the shiny jeep they had spotted from the window upstairs.

After about fifteen minutes, half an argument, and a crash course in hotwiring they were ready to go.

Karu had rewired the alarm system while Ari picked the locks on the garage door.

Ari, riding shotgun because she had a better head for directions, worked out a plan on a map she had found in the glove compartment.

Karu hopped into the driver's seat, grinning, and whispered (both of their voices were still just barely audible) "whatcha got for me co-captain?"

A small hideout in the woods several miles from the Mercy Asylum quieted as their leader, turned up the volume on his monitor. A girl's voice filtered through the speakers, sounding a bit worse for wear.

She proceeded to give directions to the one who had called her "co-captain." They would drive out of the asylum taking about three miles' worth of tiny back-roads to avoid the traffic on the main road leading from the Asylum. There they would hook into the woods where Karu lived, and stay there the night.

The man in the hideout began throwing some things into a backpack, "Perfect! We will meet them there."

thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed, and merry christmas, even if you don't celebrate it,

Star


	4. of tree houses and sneaks

_Cheshire__ Smile by 2nd Star to the Right _

_Disclaimer: Nothing to do with the Gundams belongs to me (but Karu and Ari do!)_

CHAPTER FOUR… of tree houses and the people who hide in them

A small fortress came into the circle of light thrown by the wrangler's headlights.

It was actually hard to tell what it was at first glance.

It was centered around a very large and twisted tree. There were pulley systems and platforms, ladders and cables duct taped into vines, all dangling from a main platform.

Ari stared at Karu's tree home, yellow and odd-looking in the headlights. She had seen Karu's home before, she had helped build it, but it had changed a bit.

It was a good fifteen feet off the ground, which was how it was when Ari last left it, but now she couldn't see any sure way of getting to the fort. All of the ropes and ladders were draped between the main building and smaller branch platforms, but nothing connected Karu's world to the ground. Ari couldn't imagine how the kidnappers had gotten in.

She turned slightly to Karu who was slumped in the driver's seat, "you've gotten more paranoid…"

"How can you blame me? We were just abducted and imprisoned!"

"This is gonna make you more paranoid, isn't it…"

Karu snorted rather ungracefully and climbed out of the Wrangler. She stood stretching while Ari shook her head sadly and got their things out of back seats. She threw a couple bags at Karu, who caught most of it, then picked up what she dropped, and walked to the tree, whining about having to reconnect her technology (which was probably broken from being thrown around anyway.)

Karu stopped complaining to call back to Ari, "You'll need to follow me carefully, I've set some traps that you don't know about and may not see."

"You mean like that?" Ari was pointing at the lowest hanging rope. It ended just next to a branch of the tree. Ari couldn't see well enough, but she knew that branch had to be unstable. There was no way Karu would just leave her home open that way.

"Are you deaf? I said things you couldn't see! Like that." She gestured at the grassy spot slightly to their left. "It will break your legs."

"Well you don't need to be rude about it! I was only asking"

"I'm sorry, we're both tired and hungry, lets go up, get some snacks, and chillax, ok?"

Ari giggled, "you just said 'chillax'!" And then she answered, "I'd love some food and beauty rest, but how do we get up there?"

Karu walked forward exactly four steps, and turned slightly right. She continued walking in a tight circle until she'd gone partially around the trunk. She pressed her palm into the bark and held it there for a moment.

She turned to the slightly doubtful Ari and informed her, "It's measuring my pulse."

Ari started to ask what was measuring her pulse when something hummed mechanically and a section of bark slid away. Karu looked back at her friend and grinned hugely. In the darkness of the tree trunk her smile reminded Ari of the Cheshire cat.

Suddenly the smile vanished with a small muffled scream and scuffling noises.

Ari darted towards the darkness where her best friend had disappeared but the bark had already slid back into place.

She couldn't hear anything from inside the tree, Karu must have been knocked unconscious- that's the only way the freaks inside would get her to shut u so quickly.

Ari couldn't see much since the jeep's headlights were on the other side of the tree, but she knew she had to get to Karu _now._ She began beating her palms against the bark, trying to find the spot that Karu had used.

She was screaming to draw the kidnappers' attention away from her friend when she made out Karu's voice, sounding a little like it was coming from inside a tin can.

For awhile Karu just laughed, then when Ari was truly ready to kill her, she commented, "You have to hole your hand still for a couple seconds, even I'm not good enough for instantaneous readings! Move your hand a little to the right and down, hold it… good! Now come on up."

The bark slid back, elevator door style, and this time soft light illuminated a huge, spiraling staircase that ran along the inside of the trunk.

Karu was yelling from the top of the stairs, although Ari couldn't see her. "Stand on the welcome mat for five seconds and then you can come up."

Ari moved to the mat, "Come where? I can't even see you! How am I supposed to know where to go? I am too tired and hungry to deal with your paranoia right now!" "Alright get up here already, sporks, what's your issue!"

As Ari got closer to the top of the staircase she realized that she would end up eye-level to the floor of Ari's tree-studio. She also noted that a screen suspended to the ceiling showed projections of a continuing spiral staircase, explaining why she couldn't tell where she was going before.

She was intently studying the screen when she caught movement along side of her. In a flash she remembered that Karu had been grabbed! This was a set-up!

Cursing herself for having the memory span of a retarded goldfish, she jumped up and onto the landing.

She auomatically snap-kicked the movement on her right, which turned out be a compact sort of a man with a knife in each hand, before she realized that Karu was laughing at her again.

Shesheathed her own knives, knowing Karu wouldn't be laughing if there was true danger, and was enjoying threatening Karu with several long and painful deaths, when she realized that there were a half dozen strangers in Karu's living room.

"You could have let me know you spaz, You could have said, by the way, there'll be strangers chilling when you get up here. Who are they anyway?"

Karu was flatly ignoring her, instead she was plugging in and testing all of her machinery.

Ari sighed and turned to apologize to the man she had kicked, " I'm sorry, sir, I assumed… DAD?"

Heero Yuy stood on the landing, rubbing the arm she had kicked and grinning hugely at his daughter.

thanks again for reading and any input you have for me.. star


	5. of dads and sandwiches

_Cheshire Smile by 2nd Star to the Right_

_Disclaimer: Nothing to do with the Gundams belongs to me (but Karu and Ari do)_

CHAPTER FIVE... of famous parents and the art of making a sandwich

Karu turned to watchher friend realize who it was that she had assaulted.

Normally it wouldn't take her this long, Karu made a note to get that girl some caffeine as soon as possible.

Then Ari was shrieking "DAD?" and rushing into her father's arms where she was squeezed like a doll. He even picked her up and twirled her around like he had when she was small, laughing and telling her, "Haven't I told you not to assume?"

He was stronger than his small frame seemed to provide, and tougher looking, like steel, although, amended Karu, toughness has nothing to do with size, check out Sensei.

Even if he was on the shorter side, Mr. Yuycould still manage to drape an armaroundAri's shoulders as they talked.

"Karu was telling me that you'd improved, little ninja, but I'm glad I got proof!"

"Dad! You practically rushed me! And Karu! You… you! Oh! If you knew he was going to be here and you didn't tell me!"

Karu was shaking her head, "I was more shocked that you were to find Mr. Heero Yuy in my mud room! It's not like I usually walk in on famous people infiltrating my house!" She glared playfully at Mr. Yuy, apparently they were comfortable with each other after years of sharing Ari.

Ari walked to the fridge and began rooting through it's contents, pausing to toss a can of Coke the her dad and Karu. Then she remembered the others, so far untalkative, in the room. "Anyone else?" She held up a can uncertainly and gestured at the men.

They were each dressed alike, but not the same, not a uniform or anything. So they weren't official or anything. That was sort of a relief.

Three of them held up a hand saying, "here?" or "please." From behind one of Karu's larger monitors came mumbled complaints about "first strangers all up in my house and now she's gonna feed them my stash..."

Ari shook her head even though Karu was now under the desk, "I'm actually doing you a favor- we're not gonna be here to drink your addictive soda anyway, right dad?" Karu's head popped up, apparently to hear the answer clearly.

"Very good, Ari! " Her dad was nodding approvingly.

Ari was searching the fridge for mayo and continued to Karu, "He wouldn't have dragged all these people along and gone to the trouble of getting in if he was just visiting. In fact," She emerged from the fridge with the mayo, lettuce and some deli baggies, "I bet no one knows you're here. You either need us for something or something really big happened and you think we need to be moved for protection."

Her father was smiling proudly and his men were watching her with new respect. She was carefully slicing a tomato as she added, "and more than likely, it's both."

She paused to assemble her sandwich and then turned to her dad, "Are these your friends? From when you were kids, fighting together?"

"Oh, that's right you've never met them, have you? Well, we'll take care of that! They're not all here, but this is Chang Wufei"- the asian warrior in the corner bowed slightly in greeting, "Hello."

"and Trowa Barton"- a solumn, tall man next to Wufei smiled at Ari.

"Duo and Quatre are both rather hard to get a hold of these days, but I'll make sure you meet them. These others are also friends, although I haven't known them for nearly so long, this is Lance, Ace, Doc, and Aki. I trust them and so should you."

The last comment was aimed at Karu who was typing conspicuously on her now- re-connected laptop. She waved him off muttering, "and this from the guy who broke in to my house!"

Ari's dad grinned again, "I meant to congratulate you on that- it was harder than we expected. That's why we met you at the bottom, we didn't feel like dealing with any suprises the staircase holds."

Karu nodded vaguely, she was typing again and mentioned, "That's a very, very good thing, I hate re-wiring my explosives" Ace turned to Ari and said, "I'm worrying about your choice in friends…"

Ari grinned at the older fighter and announced, "She's no crazier than I am."

Mr. Yuy burst out laughing, when he had stopped he announced, "Girls, I'm enjoying the banter, but we really need to pack and get going."

Both friends looked at him, at each other, and then laughed. In answer to his questioning look, Ari gestured to the bags each of them were holding.

"You really didn't see it? Geez, dad you're loosing your touch! I've got both of our clothes in here, and the food is here. Karu's got weaponry and our other equipment in that one and her precious laptop and it's necessities in there."

Heero Yuy blinked at his daughter, "You're sure? we can take an extra minute if you wanna check what you packed..."

He trailed off at the smirks on the girls' faces.

"You shouldn't be so cocky! Teenagers! Think they can tell you who, what, where, and when! When i was a kid i respected my elders..."

He was interrupted bythe childhood allyhe had identified as Chang Wufei, "You did no such thing! we were all punks, and you were probably the worst! and definatly the leader!"

Ari picked up her freshly packed bags and tugged her dad's arm, leadingdown the stairs as he sputtered about being betrayed by friends and family.

Chang Wufei trailed behind him saying that, "this rings just anyway, old punks with authority issues helping out new punks with the same disorder..."

Kari viewed her home for a moment before tuning off the lights and facing her next adventure, murmuring to herself, "having issues with authority isn't a disorder, it just makes life more fun..."

happy reviewing, star


End file.
